Posts by ThatOne

Google Chrome lacks protection against one of the most basic and common ways to track users online

Re: Be prepared for the anti-Firefox hordes.

> There seems to be a lot of Firefox bashing

There are indeed a lot of people blindly accusing Firefox of everything nasty happening anywhere (why did Firefox have to start a war in Iran anyway?). Their point always is, Firefox is the reason we can't have nice things, so switch to Chrome and let the big monopoly in the sky become reality at last.

Now (as a long-time Mozilla/FF user) I do have to admit not everything is perfect with Firefox, and there have been a lot of rather questionable decisions made through the years. But it still is the best option, even if it is now utterly uncool among the youth (borderline something to be ashamed of). Having uncle Google's sweaty hand in your panties is way more trendy. Go figure.

Fission impossible: Uncle Sam wants nuclear reactors in space by 2031

Oh yes, solar panels produce almost as much waste heat as a nuclear reactor... Totally comparable. I don't understand how people can even consider using them.

_{(Seriously, you're entitled to your opinion, but if you want to defend it try to select your arguments a little better)}

Re: "much will depend on funding and focus"

> And that is the big problem with democraties - they are led by individuals who mostly don't care about what the previous incumbent thought was a good idea

Because in feudal or dictatorial regimes the current ruler's main concern is to further his predecessor's life work? Seriously, how is that a problem of "democracies"? It's a problem of human nature, and as such universal.

White House seeks deep NASA cuts as Artemis II breaks spaceflight record

Actually it's only a couple months at a time since the situation changes constantly, and most decisions (good or bad) aren't guaranteed to last long enough to be applied...

There is a base tune of "we don't want to pay for that useless 'science' shit", modulated by whatever laws still subsist, and sudden inspirations like "hey, why don't we do this cool thing so we can bask in the glory", themselves moderated by the desire to have somebody else pay for them (and by any passing butterflies).

Managing a lab's budget wasn't much fun before, but it has become a waking nightmare nowadays.

Starlink sprays debris into orbit following another satellite 'anomaly'

Re: Hang on

Well, it's not necessarily the latest which fails.

WSL graphics driver update brings better GPU support for Linux apps

Re: With grateful thanks

GOG is re-releasing those old games (for a couple $) without the original copy protections (which wouldn't work nowadays). I've bought most of my old games again, despite still having the original floppies/CDs/DVDs. Not only I don't need to bother with those old copy protections, but they have been tweaked to run better on modern Windows and/or Wine.

With grateful thanks

> WINE is working to keep those old Windows binaries running well on modern 64-bit Unix-like OSes

And we're grateful for this.

_{Lots of old and dear games...}

Artemis II countdown begins as NASA prepares for crewed Moon flyby

Waiting. And waiting...

> At the four-hour mark, the crew is strapped into the Orion capsule

4 hours sitting there waiting for an at least delicate if not dangerous event? I sure hope they have brought some books (you know, those quaint paper thingies) to avoid going mad...

_{Yes, I know, there are last minute checks to be made, but I doubt those will take over one hour.}

Google gives Android users a way to install unverified apps if they prove they really, really want to

> If I do, should I enable it just for one week (and regain the bit of protection against scammers) or do I enable indefinitely?

Come on, the only two cases where this applies are either you're senile and don't trust in the continuity of your judgment, or you install something on some elderly relative's phone.

In other words, people who will use this feature usually should be savvy enough to not fall for "very urgent" support scams. Meaning they can leave it on forever.

Microsoft adding Xbox mode to Windows 11 – even the Professional edition

No, it's specifically if you don't have an Xbox that you're supposed to be shown what you're missing

Russian cybercrims phish their way into officials' Signal and WhatsApp accounts

Sorry, you can fix stupid

> if your operational security plan relies on the hope that nobody will ever ask you for a six-digit code in a chat

Aw come on! The only way for things to stay secret no matter how naive the user might be is to shoot them: Dead users don't talk. As long as there is at least one user alive, no amount of paranoid security will save you from human stupidity. And no gadget or flashy new fad either.

What will save you, what needs to be done is to educate people, and surprisingly it's quite efficient if my elder relatives are anything to go by (Email account confirmation? Bank account allegedly hacked? Nephew allegedly imprisoned? They have faced and mastered them all).

Re: Russian hacking

> a remarkably advanced technique known in the trade as asking for the password.

Indeed. And which apparently works remarkably well, a huge part of the flourishing phishing industry is built upon it: "There is some very serious problem with your account, please send us your login and password so we can verify it's you".

NASA’s asteroid defence mission slowed targets by 1.7 inches per hour

Re: Is it actually useful?

> We're gonna need more, larger impactors

Or smaller asteroids...

.

Serious now, this is promising, but based on the assumption we'll spot the offending asteroid a long time in advance. For bigger asteroids this is credible, but then the impactor would need to be proportionally bigger, with all the technical problems launching it. For smaller asteroids on the other hand, the chances to spot them in time get proportionally smaller too. So, yes, it works, but is far from a silver bullet impactor.

Congress puts the ISS on life support until 2032, orders Moon base plan

Re: Depends

> You seem to believe that at this moment (not 50 years ago), the U.S. government is better at this than commercial companies are.

Obviously "at this moment" there is no U.S. government, there is only the court of the orange king.

But generally speaking, non-profit or long-term research can only done by government funding, because companies never look beyond the next fiscal quarter. They are only interested to fund research they can turn into a profit rather quickly.

Re: Depends

> Commercial cargo worked.

Of course, transporting cargo is a simple service you can easily outsource and pay/get paid for. The ISS on the other hand is a scientific endeavor without any commercial aspect. If you want to make money out of a space station you'll have to turn it into a hotel for wealthy space tourists, which means any "commercial" space station won't really be able to replace the ISS as a research lab in space.

Not better, not worse, simply a completely different thing.

> two commercial space stations

Unfortunately "commercial" means "less science, more profit!"... Oh well, despite devolving into a source of space tourists' YouTube videos, it's better than nothing I guess...

Transport for London says 2024 breach affected 7M customers, not 5,000

Eleanor Rigby

> contactless users

Also known as "lonely people"?

Altman said no to military AI abuses – then signed Pentagon deal anyway

Law doesn't apply to those who are above it...

Supposedly big-brained execs are outsourcing decisionmaking to AI

Workers are lazy so income and corporate taxes must be abolished?

I thought it was "workers are lazy, that's why pillowcases should only come in dark blue". (At least that sounds more logical to me.)

_{(Didn't downvote you though.)}

Microsoft Copilot to hijack your browser... for your own convenience

Re: Have these people no shame /s

The plan is that Windows = Copilot, so you do everything through Copilot. You don't need anything else, do you...

_{Unfortunately this isn't one of my usual sarcasms, I'm sure I read it in an El Reg article (quite) some time ago, Microsoft seriously thinks about doing it for the/a next Windows version.}

Re: You can take my Firefox

Unfortunately this is called "preaching to the converted", the happy few reading El Reg. The vast majority of users remain caught in the net of Microsoft and won't leave Windows anytime soon (because of convenience, ignorance or both): Microsoft can do to them whatever they want, people will grumble a little and keep using it. And seeing this, Microsoft keeps getting bolder and bolder...

Google feels the need for security speed, so will ship Chrome updates every two weeks

Re: Just a way to accumulate bugs

Don't be a pessimist: "Updates" doesn't necessarily mean new features. Most updates will be just changing the placement or shape of some buttons, or tweak some color. The point is to look fresh, new and frantic, not to having progressed towards a browser-brain interface by the end of the year. Apparently frequent releases look good, they sound industrious.

Re: Anyone here playing whack a web mole?

> buggers up some third-party SaaS (not one as widely used as, ooh, Google Docs)

Precisely: You'd better use Googleware, and only Googleware. Or else.

_{Else you'll be washed away. At the latest in a couple years, when updates become daily.}

Accenture down to buy Downdetector as part of $1.2 billion deal

Re: Strange world

> the intention to reduce corporate debt

Of course, but where is the benefit if by reducing debt you also reduce future profits?

In both cases future profits will be lower. Maybe the sold assets did earn you less than you would spend to pay off the debt over a period, but I don't see how that difference could be big enough to make the share value increase by 81 percent! Nah, definitely unable to understand the logic...

Strange world

Selling off part of your profit-creating assets raises company value. I'll definitively never understand business...

Hubble in a death spiral that could end as early as 2028 without a reboost

That's like saying "developing faster-than-light propulsion sounds far more interesting than trying to return to the Moon".

Baby steps. Right now we can't even simply go to the Moon, so how are we supposed to install heavy high(est)-precision instruments on it? Not to mention the small problem of communicating with anything on the far side of the moon. Sorry, reality is a bitch...

Re: 2028 sounds like a death sentence for Hubble

> Even many science-minded people think JWST is a Hubble replacement

The Duning-Kruger is strong on them. Unfortunately, for most people who know little about astronomy we (mankind) just need a telescope, i.e. one. "Telescope? Check. Who cares what it is called, it's a telescope after all, isn't it". Their dentists should set about using a pneumatic drill, that would teach them about the complexity of the world they live in...

PCs and phones to get more boring and expensive in 2026 thanks to memory drought

Re: What is a PC ?

> The tenacity with which that thing clung to its MS operating system was astonishing.

Sorry but that's not my experience: When I bought my latest laptop it had Win11 preinstalled (obviously), which I decided to keep for firmware updates. So I shrunk it down to the minimum, and used the freed space to install Linux. Worked like a charm, the laptop reliably boots to Linux, and I never had any unexpected Windows burps. For the record same thing happened with my previous laptop: Initially on Windows, shrunk, added Linux, no problems.

As already stated, hotkeys on boot require repeated hitting. AFAIK that's a BIOS quirk, since it all happens before the OS gets anything to say.

Re: people are buying too much RAM oh no

> None of it is going to consumers.

Who needs consumers when you have obscenely rich AI peddlers who will pay any price...

Re: The same with Mars bars

> and now all the newer versions will be objectively worse.

But they have more AI!!!! So the idiots will rush to buy them nevertheless...

_{To be fair, manufacturers do everything they can to make their older phones obsolete and dangerous to use, simply by not providing security patches anymore for somewhat older models. And of course by making batteries so hard to replace you have to really, really want to keep your old, now unsafe phone...}

Harvard boffins finally crack the mystery of squeaky sneakers

Re: I'm sure Nike or Adidas...

> copyright the noise

Even better: Shape the sole so the squeaking sound actually spells their brand: Imagine your shoes going "nike, nike" each time you walk on a parquet... OK, I admit it would be way more difficult to make them squeak "adidas"... :-D

Attacker gets into France's database listing all bank accounts, makes off with 1.2 million records

Re: "mobilized the agencies that fight this sort of incident"

> the moron who thinks he's a playboy.

For those who aren't familiar with France's who-is-who, who's that?

Re: Of course French govt need to collect details of every bank account

Money laundering and tax evasion are a reality, not only rich people profit from it.

I'm not defending the fact, I just say keeping tabs on money movements might be more common than just France.

Re: Of course French govt need to collect details of every bank account

> why they need this information in the first place

Tax evasion, money laundering, there are lots of more or less valid excuses. There is none for losing that kind of sensitive information though.

Re: Down with...

> "France’s government has mobilized the agencies that fight this sort of incident"

A pity they didn't do it some months earlier... I'm sure those 1.2 million victims who now will face all kind of problems would had appreciated the effort...

SpaceX's faulty Falcon spewed massive lithium plume over Europe, say scientists

This is a problem, but a different one

Pollution? That's a hippy communist notion! Money doesn't smell, even the ancient Romans knew that! The real problem is we can't bill those despicable Europeans for all that good American lithium they steal!

_{Disclaimer: Above statement(s) is/are an example of "sarcasm", shouldn't be taken literally and don't reflect my personal opinion.}

Price of popularity: Linux Mint's success also means maintainer stress

> denying the possibility of problems and blaming the user

I'm doing neither. The fact is, what you describe is not a common issue, and since it happens on all your computers, there has to be a common factor. Assuming those 6 computers don't all use the same sound hardware (pointing to a driver issue), that leaves us with the OS installations. Maybe done from faulty installation media? I don't know, I'm not a computer expert. I don't say "it's your fault", but you have to admit that the only thing (we know of) that those 6 computers have in common is your Mint installation. And there has to be a common factor.

_{Unless of course you prefer to think that Linux Mint hates you personally, they have somehow detected which computers you have installed, and have sabotaged them just to spite you... :-p}

Just used it, and I'm no IT wizard...

(On the other hand my first personal computer was running CP/M, so command lines don't scare me. The only annoying thing is having to recall the specific secret incantation you need, especially when you only use it every other year.)

I don't know what your gripe with sound is. I admit I'm not a musician (someone once tried to explain to me about latency issues or some such), but for the average user I am, sound has been working reliably in Mint for over 10 years now (Mint 17-21), including listening to music and watching movies when traveling with my laptop. I never had any freezes either, so there is definitely something fishy with your installation(s) or configuration(s).

_{(Didn't downvote you though.)}

Crims hit a $20M jackpot via malware-stuffed ATMs

Re: Questions, Questions,...

> a tampering alert back to the bank for just opening the cover

Technically I agree, but have you thought of the poor bankers' hungry children crying themselves to sleep? Such an alert would cost money! Somebody think of the children!

Re: You just know they skimped on the security

> build your ATM on a Windows platform

I'm not trying to defend the use of Windows, but from what I just read bad guys open the ATM and access the hard drive. Even if you ran Linux or whatever else, from the moment the bad guys get access to the innards of the ATM it's most likely game over: Even if the hard drive is securely encrypted, they just need to switch it for one which runs their own brand of software. After all they only need access to one single instruction: "spill the beans, all of them, now".

$8K laundry bot knows when to hold ’em, knows when to fold ’em, and knows it has help standing by

Re: Who is this for?

> If you are rich enough that you can throw away that kind of money on something as frivolous as this, you aren't doing your own laundry anyway.

Came to say the same thing: $8k just to avoid 5 to 10 minutes of work/week? In that case you certainly can also afford to hire some domestic help who will take care of the whole laundry process, hamper to wardrobe, and will handle your expensive clothes with proper care.

I understand they're still (many) years away from the perfect robotic butler who will clean, do the laundry, cook dinner, walk the dog, bring you your newspaper, answer the phone and get the groceries needed to prepare aforementioned dinner, but the limited version they try to start with is kind of really limited... The only potential clients I see are those who need to impress their visitors ("Hey, look how cool I am, I have a laundry-folding robot!").

Log files that describe the history of the internet are disappearing. A new project hopes to save them

Re: DejaNews

> Those who do not preserve history are doomed.

Historical records are dangerous. That's how innocent people might accidentally discover that Oceania has not always been at war with Eastasia.

Trump's Genesis Mission gets its first set of 26 sure-to-succeed objectives

> “In other words, more science, less wasteful spending, and less politics involved in the process.”

Translates into the well-known "don't work harder, work smarter!"

Besides I'm sure scientists needed the reminder to do some science (between packing hamburgers).

.

> An interesting assertion given the DoE's recent disavowal of decades of climate science.

Nowadays there is Good science, and there is Bad science. It's simple: Climate = Bad science. Vaccines = Bad science. Who needs vaccines, drinking bleach cures all diseases!

_{Disclaimer: Above statement(s) is/are an example of "sarcasm", shouldn't be taken literally and don't reflect my personal opinion.}

Microsoft dials up the nagging in Windows, calls it security

Re: Crawl

> What could go wrong.

For Microsoft, nothing. For the users though...

Anyway, once this is released, you will run to buy that new computer with a beefy CPU (or two) and at least 64 GB of RAM. Just to run Windows.

Microsoft engineer speedruns Raspberry Pi magic smoke in five minutes

O tempora o mores

> managed to release the magic smoke from a Raspberry Pi 5 in five minutes, he says

Is this a contest? I'm pretty sure i can make it go up in flames in less by plugging it into the mains. Do I become famous too if I do?

Jeez.

Microsoft actually does something useful, adds Sysmon to Windows

Can only be unintentional

> Who are we kidding?

Nobody. This was an oversight and will be fixed momentarily. Microsoft is all about removing useful functionality, and adding shiny, happy gadgets nobody asked for or wants (except Microsoft's marketing department).

Windows has been steadily dumbed down since Win7. Windows 14 will only have a big button "Give us money" in fancy colors (and require about 2 TB of disk space).

EU's fishy digital certificate system leaves exporters floundering

Re: Pivot to digital they said. It'll be fine they said.

Stick an RFID chip on every fish, have fishers scan them (could even be automated), ready! Why doesn't anybody think of the easy solutions!...

_{Disclaimer: Above statement(s) is/are an example of "sarcasm", shouldn't be taken literally and don't reflect my personal opinion.}

Latest Vivaldi release surfs a wave of anti-AI sentiment

Re: AI

> constantly restoring VPN button to the most prominent place in the toolbar

Strange, I have Vivaldi as a second browser (for websites which don't work with Firefox) and I've never ever seen a "VPN" button.

Maybe because I've unchecked "Enable Proton VPN for Vivaldi" in the settings?

Uncle Sam dangles nuclear campuses for states while watering down safety rules

What a radiant future!...